Reflections on Week 4 at Code Fellows: Mastering Responsive Design and Professional Development

Introduction

Welcome to my fourth week at Code Fellows, a coding bootcamp in Seattle that I took remotely. This week was all about the final project, where we worked in a group of four to build a fully functional web application. In this post, I'll be sharing my experiences during this week, where we focused on project management, team collaboration, and professional development. It was a busy and challenging week, but also a rewarding one as we got to see our project come to life. In this post, I'll be sharing some of the highlights of my week and the lessons I learned along the way. So, join me as I continue to document my journey through the Code Fellows program.

Collaboration and GitHub

Project week is an opportunity for students to work together on a real-world project and experience the challenges and rewards of collaboration. One of the most important aspects of this experience is learning to use GitHub as a tool for collaboration.

GitHub is a platform that allows multiple people to work on the same codebase at the same time. It can be a powerful tool for collaboration, but it can also be a source of frustration for students who are new to the platform. For example, understanding how to use branches, pull requests, and merge conflicts can be challenging for students who have not used GitHub before.

Despite these challenges, I found that learning to collaborate on GitHub was one of the most valuable parts of my education in Code Fellows 201. I had some prior coding experience, but learning to collaborate is something that I could only learn by working with a group. Code Fellows provided me with the opportunity to work on a team, and I am grateful for that experience.

The project prep assignments were a key aspect of the project week. These assignments were designed to help students understand the importance of collaboration, and to prepare them for the project week by giving them the tools they needed to work together effectively. The Project Team Agreement which we had to do as a team, was an important step in project planning and establishing a Team Agreement. This was used as a guideline for how our team would collaborate during project week.

We spent our weekend leading up to project week completing the project prep assignments, which helped us to be better prepared for the project week and to understand the importance of collaboration. Overall, the project prep assignments helped us to develop a better understanding of the role of collaboration in the project week, and to be better prepared to work as a team.

Overall, the project prep assignments were an essential part of the project process and helped us to set our project up for success. By taking the time to properly plan and organize our work, we were able to create a cohesive, effective team that was able to produce a polished and functional final product.

Our Pokemon-themed Game: An Overview

Our project for week 4 was a Pokemon-themed rock, paper, scissors game that allowed the user to select their character to go up against a randomly selected opponent. The game was designed to be both entertaining and to make decisions based on the outcome of the game. The game was a web-based application and was built using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

The MVP (Minimum Viable Product) of the project was to create an interactive rock, paper, scissors game that engaged the user through the user's choice of Pokemon and played it against randomly selected opposing Pokemon. The user's wins and losses were stored locally using local storage. The web application had a minimum of four web pages, including a page for the game itself, a page for storing the user's wins and losses, and a page displaying all viewed Pokemon.

Overall, the project was a great learning experience, as it allowed us to work with arrays, objects, and constructors and prototype methods. I found this to be one of the most important aspects of my education in 201, as it allowed me to learn about collaboration, using Github, and how to work with a group.

Final Presentation: Showcasing our Project and Communicating its Value

In our final presentation for the project, our team had the opportunity to showcase the work we had accomplished over the course of the week. Each team member discussed a different aspect of the application, highlighting the different features and functionality that we had implemented. We gave a live demonstration of the application, showing how it worked in real-time and answering any questions that the audience had. It was a great opportunity to not only show off our hard work, but also to practice our presentation skills and ability to explain technical concepts in a way that was easy for non-technical people to understand. The Q&A session at the end of the presentation was particularly valuable as it gave us the chance to get feedback and address any concerns that the audience had. Overall, the final presentation was a great learning experience and a chance to showcase the skills we had acquired throughout the course.

Code Fellows 201: A Comprehensive and Career-Focused Education

The Code Fellows 201 course provides a comprehensive and accelerated learning experience for students looking to enter the field of web development. Throughout the course, students are exposed to a wide range of concepts, starting with the basics of programming and quickly progressing to more advanced topics such as object manipulation, building constructors, and sending data to local storage.

One of the standout features of the course is its focus on career preparation. Throughout the course, students are given a number of career-focused assignments, including building a resume, creating a professional online presence, and learning how to effectively search for and interview for jobs. This emphasis on career readiness helps to ensure that students are well-prepared for the job market upon completing the course.

Another key aspect of the Code Fellows experience is the emphasis on collaboration. Throughout the course, students are encouraged to work together and share their knowledge and skills through the use of GitHub. This not only helps students to learn from one another, but also helps them to develop the skills needed to work effectively in a team environment.

The course is structured in a stacked learning approach, which means that students build on the knowledge and skills they acquire in the previous level in order to tackle the more challenging content in the next level.

The course is also designed to be highly interactive and engaging, with a mix of lectures, hands-on coding exercises, and group projects. This approach helps students to stay engaged and motivated throughout the course, and allows them to apply what they are learning in a real-world context.

Overall, the Code Fellows 201 course provides a comprehensive and challenging learning experience that is well-suited for students looking to enter the field of web development. With its focus on career readiness, collaboration, and interactive learning, it is an excellent choice for anyone looking to take their first steps in this exciting field.

Conclusion

In conclusion, week 4 at Code Fellows was a challenging and rewarding experience. Through our group project, we learned the importance of collaboration and using tools like GitHub to effectively work as a team. We also gained a deeper understanding of the concepts we had learned throughout the course, such as arrays, objects, and constructors.

In addition to the technical skills we developed, we also focused on professional development, including building a resume, establishing a professional online presence, and learning the STAR method for interviews. The final presentation and demonstration of our project was a valuable experience, as it gave us the opportunity to present our work and communicate our ideas in a clear and concise way to both technical and non-technical audiences.

After completing week 4 and the final project, I took the 301 entrance exam and was accepted into the next level of the program. I look forward to sharing my experiences in 301, and 401 in future blog posts. Overall, my experience at Code Fellows has been incredibly valuable, and I am grateful for the opportunity to learn and grow as a developer.